Esports Community Rallies Behind Disabled CS:GO Player After Being Bullied

His name is Adam Bahriz, but most of you know him as “Loop”. Loop loves to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and is quite good, even compared to those that can actually see their computer monitor.

Yes, see as in what you are doing right now reading this.

Loop is legally blind and suffers from a rare genetic condition called HSAN type 2.

HSAN type II is a condition that primarily affects the sensory nerve cells, which transmit information about sensations such as pain, temperature, and touch. Loop cannot feel physical pain.

But he can feel the emotional pain of being ridiculed and bullied. That’s exactly what happened in this instance and it wasn’t the first time.

Loop was kicked from an ESEA match after asking his team in voice chat if they wanted him to smoke off the A Bomb site on Cache while on the Terrorist side. Loop has a slight speech impediment, but is perfectly understandable. The players with whom he was playing called him a troll, said they were going to mute him, and then ultimately kicked him from the game. All because of the way he sounded.

I bid you that this is where the sadness started and ended. You see, when the esports community found out that one of their own was being bullied and discriminated against, they rallied–and did they ever.

The leader of Cloud9’s CS:GO squad, Jordan ‘n0thing’ Gilbert, was the first to denounce what had happened and rallied behind Loop. He went so far as to reach out to the young man and offered to play with him. The offer was accepted and Loop had the time of his life.

Loop was then invited to play with the many professional Counter-Strike players and streamed it live on Twitch.tv. Some of you may not have realized that Loop was telling us his story.

With his face pressed up against the monitor as close as he could get, he moved, played, clicked his mouse with expertise that some of you out there will never be able to do. We saw his emotions when he lost a round, we watched him celebrate when he won a round. But perhaps the most poignant and tear jerking move came when Mohamad ‘mOE’ Assad donated $500 to Loop during his stream–twice.

Loop has become the focal point of thousands of professional players and hundreds of thousands of esports fans. We are learning every day that the culture of esports is an inclusive group, that sometimes fight amongst themselves, but never in a way that Loop was treated. That doesn’t fly here.

Ryan ‘fREAKZOID’ Adadir also took to his stream and summed up beautifully what it means to be one of the many great, kind, and compassionate people in the esports community.

Well said Ryan, well said. Because of people like you, Loop had the best day of his life.